The wall I am talking about here is known as the separation wall, which the Zionist occupiers of our land began building in 2002. Two years later, on 30 July 2004, The International Court of Justice issued a “first advisory opinion”, finding that the construction of a separation wall inside the occupied Palestinian territories had to be halted because it was contrary to International Law. Of course, this opinion was totally ignored, as usual, and the construction continued apace. They went much further than that.
That same wall is now 708 kilometres long, 8 metres high and dotted with observation towers and electronic devices. It stretches from Jenin in the North, my birthplace, to Hebron in the South, my late mother’s birthplace. This ugly, forbidding and cruel structure is built on yet more stolen Palestinian land. It separates and isolates families and communities, and makes travel from one place to another around the wall an arduous and lengthy procedure, turning normal life for normal citizens into a virtual sentence of hard labour.
Over six months ago, on 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice, the highest authority in international law, ruled that “Israel’s Construction of the separation wall inside the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must be dismantled”.
Again, totally ignored.
Beyond that wall is a lethal and forbidding hard place. An inhumane brutal occupation with murderous intentions. An apartheid system that was described by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when he visited Palestine, as worse than what they experienced in South Africa. The Israeli Defence Force wreaks havoc all over Palestine, unhindered and unopposed. Almost 800,000 feral, illegal settlers roam through the occupied Palestinian Territories, armed to the teeth, funded by so-called international charities and fully protected by the IDF. They burn towns and villages. They uproot olive trees. They steal and pillage. Nobody cares. If these were not enough to make normal life impossible in Occupied Palestine there is the tacit approval, nay, encouragement of most Western governments, especially the US, the UK, Germany and others.
And when we, the Palestinians, rise up in resistance, which is a right afforded to us under international law, we are demonised, de-humanised, marginalised and given the tag of “terrorists”. A glaring example of this is what has been happening in Gaza over the last 454 days and counting. The genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is dressed in Western media as “self-defence”. The murder of innocent men, women and children is described as “targeting terrorist operatives” and the destruction of all amenities of life and dignity is described as “hunting terrorist cells”.
Our children, almost 19,000 of them, have been murdered in cold blood after being described as “being used as human shields by Hamas”. Even the various United Nations Agencies that operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who try to give the Palestinians in their charge a breath of life, are described as “aiding and abetting terrorists”.
One could go on and on pontificating about the inhumanity and injustice that allows this to happen and continue to give the perpetrators material support and political cover and justify it in terms of “good” and “evil”. But I shall refrain.
What is more evil than the murder of 19,000 innocent children?
What is more evil than creating more than 1400 child amputees, the largest number of paediatric amputees in history?
While I am writing these words, I’m receiving news from Gaza that newborn babies are freezing to death for lack of sustenance, shelter or warm covering. Six died last night.
What is more evil than murdering more than 45,000 men and women and the destruction of hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches?
What is more evil than depriving 2.5 million Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza of water, bread, medicine and shelter?
These 2.5 million innocent people have been shunted under the orders of the Israeli Occupying Power, from one place to another, each described as a safe haven, only to be bombed and burned to smithereens.
More evil than all of this is the complicity and encouragement of Western powers. And their deafening silence.
Are we Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, deserving of a dignified and humane existence? Apparently not.
According to the Israeli occupying power, we are human animals.
According to Western politicians we are disposable; otherwise how could one explain the uttering of some American politicians:
“Kill them all”
“Finish the job”.
According to President Elect Trump, Israel is too small and it needs more space.
More space? Are they not, since 1967, in total control of historic Palestine from the river to the sea?
Haven’t they been illegally occupying the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967?
Haven’t they been illegally occupying the Shab’a farms in southern Lebanon since 1967?
Haven’t they just overtaken the UN designated buffer zone between Israel and Syria and haven’t they just gone even further, into Syria within 25 kilometres of the capital, Damascus and declared that they are there to stay? What more space, Mr President, are you talking about? Or are you now openly advocating the Zionist dream of Greater Israel?
It seems that Trump, upon resuming office in 20 days, has more horror in store for us. In an interview, he said that if the Israeli hostages that are kept in Gaza are not released before he takes on his second term there “will be all hell to pay”. He went on to say: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America.”
Mr Trump, since you uttered these words, did you have a glance towards Gaza? Have you ever seen such destruction and annihilation of a nation in modern history? You show a lot of compassion for Israeli captives. Any thoughts for the thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons and interrogation centres, enduring torture such as no man should ever have to endure?
I am sorry Mr President for addressing you in this direct manner, but what else could you possibly inflict upon us?
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Haganah Militia. He lived in London for 53 years before coming to Perth four years ago. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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